


A Soft Place to Land

by sahiya



Series: A Soft Place to Land [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Break Up, Caretaking, College Student Peter Parker, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everybody Lives, Gen, Growing Up, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad Bingo 2019, Mental Health Issues, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Has Anxiety, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Break Up, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, References to Depression, Sickfic, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Lives, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:29:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: In some ways, Peter still felt like he’d given up by choosing Cornell. If he wasn’t going to MIT, then he should have stayed in the city, where he could have done some good as Spiderman. The long drive to and from campus created space for self-doubt to creep in. But then he’d turn off the main road and onto the long, meandering drive that led to the lake house, and he’d know he’d made the right decision.Home.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker (mentioned), Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: A Soft Place to Land [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567666
Comments: 188
Kudos: 567
Collections: Iron Dad Bingo





	1. Out All Night

**Author's Note:**

> Friends, I am 11,000 words away from posting 300,000 words in 2019. That is bananas. 
> 
> I think this will be three chapters. I have two written, but I'm switching over to writing some Christmas fic, so we'll see. But the chapters are very self-contained. It's basically just really soft Irondad for the BINGO prompt "sleepy." This takes place in the same universe as "Five Times Peter and Tony Had Each Other's Backs..." sometime after the sixth chapter. 
> 
> Thanks to Fuzzyboo for beta reading.

It wasn’t the life that Peter had imagined before the snap. 

He’d had it all mapped out then. He’d graduate Midtown and go to MIT. He was fuzzy on how Spiderman would fit into his life in Boston, but he thought he’d figure it out. Might be too obvious to have Spiderman suddenly change cities like that, and he was kind of synonymous with Queens anyway, so Peter thought he might give it a rest. Maybe pull out the suit on winter break and during the summer.

BA in bioengineering, then on to the PhD. He figured he could probably get that done by the time he was twenty-three or twenty-four. He wouldn’t have two in hand by the time he was twenty-two, like Tony, but Tony himself had said that if he’d had it to do over again, he wouldn’t have pushed himself like that. You only get to be young and dumb and in college once, so you might as well enjoy it. 

And then, once he’d had time to learn something and live a little, he’d reveal his identity to the world and become an Avenger. He’d imagined himself working side-by-side with Bruce and Tony––always Tony––on R&D and research, imagined himself becoming one of the team’s Big Guns, eventually acquiring a protegé he could train up to take over when he wanted to stop fighting bad guys. He guessed that day might come. The stopping part was hazy. 

And then the snap and Quentin Beck combined blew a giant hole in Peter’s plans, and Peter found himself falling, endlessly, and his web shooters weren’t working. 

He knew now what it was, thanks to the therapist he saw once a week. Depression. Anxiety. On the really bad days, some light suicidal ideation. Peter knew that Tony and May still kicked themselves for not catching it sooner, but Peter didn’t hold it against them. He’d hidden it well, even from himself. 

On the other side of all of that, the life that Peter had mapped out for himself wasn’t possible. But he also didn’t want it anymore, not really. He didn’t want to live in a strange city where he didn’t know anyone, where Tony and May were hundreds of miles away, where there was no one to catch him if he started to fall again. 

***

Peter’s room at the lake house was set apart from everyone else’s. Morgan’s was on the second floor under the eaves, and Tony and Pepper’s was down the hall from hers. Right after the snap, Peter had stayed in a guest room on the second floor, but when he started at Cornell and came to live with the Starks, Tony gave him a room on the first floor. It had its own bathroom and the backdoor was right next to it, so there was some semblance of privacy and independence. 

“You’re an adult, Pete,” Tony’d said on Peter’s first day as an official resident of the lake house. They were sitting side-by-side on the porch, watching the sun sink below the treetops. “I’m not here to get on your case about the hours you’re keeping, or whether you’re studying enough, or what you’re up to when you’re not here. If you’re not going to make it home by midnight, I ask you to text me so I don’t worry, but you’re in college. You _should_ stay out all night sometimes. I trust you.”

Considering how much Tony had harped on Peter keeping to his curfew when he’d been in high school, Peter was kind of surprised by how lenient Tony was now. For the first couple of weeks, Peter had waited for the other shoe to drop. But it never did. 

The semester was half over before Peter really took the no-curfew arrangement out for a spin. A friend from his engineering intro sequence, Mike, was throwing a party with his roommates in their dorm room and asked Peter if he wanted to go. Peter––to his own surprise––decided that he _did_ want to go. It was the first time he’d wanted to do anything like that since... well, since before his identity had been revealed. 

He texted Tony to let him know that he’d be home late, and he texted May, because he knew she was worried he wasn’t making any friends, and he texted Ned––who _was_ at MIT––and got back a string of excited emojis. 

His thumb hovered uncertainly over MJ’s number. They hadn’t talked much since they’d both left for school. She’d forgiven him, sort of, for dumping her during the whole identity reveal fiasco, but things weren’t the same between them. It’d taken Peter a while to realize that he’d hurt her very badly. MJ didn’t trust easily, and once that trust was broken, it was hard to win it back. He’d seen her a few times over the summer, always in a group. Now she was out in California and he was here, and Peter had no idea where _they_ were––if they were anywhere at all. 

Peter sighed. As much as he wanted to share bits of his new life with MJ and hear about hers, it probably wasn’t a good idea. If he was ever going to fix things with her, it wasn’t going to happen over text.

In the time he’d spent dithering about MJ, May and Tony had both written back to him. _Make good choices_ , May had said, predictably. Tony’d written, _Have fun, be smart, and keep your biometrics tracker on––Bruce wants to see what your metabolism does with alcohol._

Peter rolled his eyes. “Weirdo,” he muttered, and went off to the library to study for a few hours before the party. 

The party was way more fun than Peter had thought it would be when he’d agreed to go. He knew a lot of the people there from his engineering sequence. It wasn’t too crowded, and they mostly kept the music at a level that didn’t feel like a physical assault to Peter’s sensitive ears. Six weeks into the semester, most people were finally starting to chill out about the fact that Peter was Spiderman, and Peter was adjusting to the inescapable fact that a lot of people were going to be kind of strange about it until they got used to the idea. 

He hadn’t been sure whether he would drink or not. He hadn’t done a lot of it so far; living an hour’s drive away meant that there just wasn’t that much opportunity. But someone handed him a beer as he walked in the door, and when that was done he had a rum and Coke, and then there were tequila shots. 

That was when he started to feel it. He glanced at his BAC on his biometrics tracker and saw that he’d left the legal limit for driving in the dust. His metabolism would take care of it soon, but at the moment, it was kind of freeing. No way to get home, so no reason to think about leaving. 

“Hey Spiderman!” someone yelled. “You any good at beer pong?”

“Probably,” Peter said with a shrug, and let himself get talked into taking on the dorm’s beer pong champion, a sophomore physics major. She was pretty cute in an unfussy, no-makeup kind of way that reminded Peter of MJ, if MJ had been a red-head with a French braid. 

Peter was pretty good at beer pong. If he hadn’t already had three or four drinks, he probably would’ve been better. Angie––sophomore physics beer pong champ––was _very_ good at it, and she was also either dead sober or just freakishly unaffected by alcohol. 

TL;DR: she kicked his ass. That was when Peter realized that he had a _type_ ––slightly scary brainiacs who were better than him at something. 

“Better luck next time,” she told him cheerfully when the game was over. 

“Um, yeah.” Peter blinked at her, wondering if he should ask her if she wanted to get coffee sometime. It was on the tip of his tongue. MJ was definitely not letting him hold her back in California, he was sure. 

He took too long to decide. She turned away to talk to a friend. Peter let out a breath, unsure whether he was relieved or disappointed. Maybe it was for the best. It was only a couple months till winter break, when MJ would be home, and Peter was hoping that maybe then, they could talk. 

If nothing had changed by then––well, Peter wasn’t an idiot. But he had to give it one last shot. 

The party didn't start to wind down until after two in the morning. Peter had switched to soda about midnight, so he was sober, but he’d been up since six and he was too tired to drive home safely. He helped Mike and his roommates and their girlfriends shove red solo cups into trash bags until the room was no longer a total health hazard and then crashed on the dorm room floor with a spare pillow and blanket. They turned off the lights, leaving the room awash in gray from the street lights filtered through the thin curtains.

A dorm room floor was the worst for sleeping, Peter discovered. It was hard as a rock and it leeched all the warmth from his body. He catnapped for a bit, but before dawn he found himself awake––tired and headachey, but awake. Enough to drive home, where a nice, soft bed with an excellent mattress and a plethora of pillows awaited him. Probably a home-cooked breakfast, too, since it was a Saturday. 

Peter sent Mike a text to let him know he’d taken off and slipped out the door. It was just after six. No one was around, except a raccoon in a trash can that he startled on the way to his car. The raccoon glared at him, annoyed at being thrown off its foraging game, and Peter hurried along before it decided to retaliate. Everyone joked about the raccoons having escaped one of the labs, but Peter wasn’t sure it was all that funny. Cornell raccoons were freakishly smart and had a massive chip on their collective shoulder.

The sky was getting lighter as Peter left campus. Upstate New York was full of state highways and tiny backroads, large swathes of land with nothing but cows, white farm houses and even the occasional red barn. The towns were small and the cities were run-down; most of them were former company towns with one or two huge factories––manufacturing towns that didn’t manufacture anything anymore. 

It was nothing like Queens. It felt slower, quieter. The sky was bigger, but there was nothing for him to swing from. On mornings like this, when there was hardly anyone else on the road, it seemed like a different world altogether. 

In some ways, Peter still felt like he’d given up by choosing Cornell. If he wasn’t going to MIT, then he should have stayed in the city, where he could have done some good as Spiderman. The long drive to and from campus created space for self-doubt to creep in. But then he’d turn off the main road and onto the long, meandering drive that led to the lake house, and he’d know he’d made the right decision. 

_Home_. 

It was silent and still at this hour. The lake was like glass. Peter parked his Prius beside Tony’s Audi and tried to shut the door quietly when he got out. He started to go around the back, where he could get in through the door by his bedroom. 

“Hey, kid.”

Peter startled. He hadn’t seen Tony sitting on the porch, wearing a Cornell hoodie and old jeans. He had a steaming cup of coffee next to him. 

“Hey,” Peter said quietly, climbing the stairs to the porch. “You’re up early.”

Tony shrugged. “Turns out I’ve gotten used to having both my kids under one roof. I had trouble sleeping. You have fun?”

“Yeah,” Peter admitted. “Don’t know if I’d stay over like that again. I didn’t sleep much either. I might take a nap after breakfast.”

Tony hummed. “If the day is nice, maybe we could pull out the hammock. Probably won’t have the chance to do it again until spring.”

“That sounds nice.” Napping with Tony in the two-person hammock down by the lake was one of Peter’s favorite things ever. They’d done it two or three times a week all summer. He always felt better afterward. 

“Want some coffee?” 

“Yes, please. I’m just gonna go take a quick shower and change my clothes. I smell like I lost at beer pong. Because I did.”

Tony wiped away an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye. “They grow up so fast.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Peter rolled his eyes and trudged inside. 

Showering helped him feel slightly more human, though he knew he’d be pretty useless until he’d had a couple hours of decent sleep. He changed into pajama pants and his favorite hoodie, and on his way through the living room, he grabbed a couple of fluffy throw blankets off the backs of the couches. 

Tony was waiting for him back on the porch. He’d moved over to the wicker loveseat, leaving room for Peter next to him. Peter gratefully accepted the cup of coffee he offered, and they sorted out the blankets. The fall morning was chilly, but the porch had a built-in heater, and the throws were warm. Tony put his vibranium arm around Peter’s shoulders, and Peter sank into Tony’s side. He wrapped his hands around his mug of coffee and inhaled.

Last night was fun, but he was almost overwhelmed by gratitude that he had this to come home to. 

“So. Beer pong?” Tony asked after a couple of minutes. 

Peter laughed quietly. “Yeah. Got my ass kicked by a sophomore named Angie.”

“Angie, huh?”

“Don’t start.”

“Was she cute?”

“She was,” Peter admitted. “I thought about asking her if she wanted to go out sometime. But I just...”

“What, kid?”

Peter swallowed. “I’m not ready to let go of the idea of me and MJ. I know I really screwed things up. I know I don’t deserve a second chance—”

“Hey, hey, Pete, stop.” Tony squeezed Peter’s shoulder. “Cut yourself some slack. You were going through something really tough.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t change the fact that I hurt her.” To his annoyance, Peter felt his throat get tight. “I apologized and she said we were okay, but we’re not.”

Tony was silent for a few seconds, as though thinking something over. “Sometimes,” he finally said, slowly, “as much as you like someone, your baggage just... isn’t compatible.”

Peter frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean... okay. You’re really afraid of anyone you love getting hurt, especially because of you, right? You’d rather leave someone than put them at risk because of who you are.”

“I guess so,” Peter said, a little reluctantly. 

“Well—it seems like MJ is really afraid of being left.”

Peter sighed. “Yeah. Her, um. Her dad left when she was nine. Just kind of walked out one day and didn’t come back.”

“Yeah, that explains it.” Tony pressed a kiss to the side of Peter’s head. “It’s not your fault, Pete. And it’s not MJ’s fault, either. But right now, I’m not sure your baggage fits.”

Peter frowned. “So I should just give up?”

“I’m not saying you should do anything,” Tony said, rubbing a hand up and down Peter’s arm. “I just don’t want you beating yourself up over it.”

Peter knew he was right. That was the hell of it. But he _liked_ MJ. Really, really liked her. The idea of just letting her go stung. “People can change.”

“They can,” Tony agreed. “You’re seeing Dr. Malin and doing a hell of a lot of hard work. But you two are also really young, and you don’t know where life is going to take you. Sometimes it leads you full circle and sometimes you end up places you never thought you’d be.”

“Yeah.” Peter snuggled closer. “So you think I should ask out the cute girl who kicked my ass at beer pong?”

“I think you should be open to possibilities.”

“Hmm. Okay.” It was too much to think about on basically no sleep. Peter yawned. Now that he was clean, warm, and comfortable, it was catching up with him. “What time is it?”

“Almost eight. Morgan will be up soon.”

“Mmm.”

“I thought I’d cook breakfast. I told Pepper she could sleep in, since she put up with me tossing and turning.”

“Mmm. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. That’s my baggage. You did exactly what you should’ve done.” Tony buried the fingers of his vibranium hand into Peter’s hair. Peter made a noise that could definitely _not_ be described as purring. “I’m just spoiled now, that’s all, from knowing exactly where both of you are every night. It can’t last forever, so it’s better for me not to get used to it.”

“Wish it could,” Peter mumbled, half asleep. 

“Wish what could?”

“Last forever.”

Tony’s hand stilled, then flattened to gently press Peter’s head to his shoulder. “It’ll last as long as you need it to, Pete. But I promise you that someday—maybe sooner than you think—you’re going to want to fly the nest. But me and May, we’ll always be here for you. Pepper and Happy, too.”

“Not always,” Peter murmured, because he’d lost three parents already, and his anxiety brain couldn’t let that slide. 

“For a long time, then,” Tony amended. “And you and Morgan will be looking after each other your whole lives, I hope.”

“Me too.” Peter drew a deep breath and snuggled closer. “This is nice.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, tightening his arm around Peter’s shoulders, “it is.”


	2. The Final

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is a cruel irony that finals season and flu season coincide. (Or bronchitis season, in this case.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Fuzzyboo for being a beta extraordinaire!
> 
> I've been having a lot of thoughts about parenting while writing this fic. I'm not a parent myself, but I have parents with whom I'm still very close as an adult, and I've been thinking about the kind of parents they were that allowed us to make that transition from parents/child to essentially friends (with some differences, obviously). Because that's what I would hope for for Peter and Tony. And it seems to me that what it comes down to on both sides is trust: Tony trusts Peter to make good choices and ask for help when he needs it, and Peter trusts Tony to be there but also not to be intrusive. It's a tough needle to thread, and even though I'm in my mid-30s now and so are most of my friends, I still see people around me struggling with it. Anyway, that's my take.

The sound of a hacking cough echoed down the hallway. Tony winced, feeling a sympathetic ache in his own chest. He’d had bronchitis enough times to know what it felt like. 

“Tony,” Pepper said. 

“I know.” 

“He sounds terrible.”

“I _know_.”

“Can’t you do something?”

Tony sighed. “I tried. The kid’s more stubborn than I am. He’s more stubborn than _Morgan_.”

Another echoing cough. _Hack hack hack._ The kind you felt deep in your chest. The kind that tore up your throat. The kind that made all the muscles in your diaphragm hurt. Jesus. 

Tony shoved himself up and went into the kitchen. “I’m gonna make him tea. Maybe that’ll help.”

“I don’t think tea is going to fix this,” Pepper said, turning around to look at him over the back of the sofa. “He needs to see Bruce.”

“I know he does,” Tony said with a sigh as he filled the kettle. “He only has one final left, and then he won’t have any reason to refuse to go to the doctor and get some rest. Everything will be over by noon tomorrow.”

“You think he’s going to be able to take the test?” Pepper asked, getting up to join him in the kitchen. “Because he sounds like he’s on his deathbed.”

Tony put the kettle on, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked at Pepper. “Remember that time you were supposed to address the SI board of directors for the first time as CEO?”

Pepper’s lips quirked. “I might.”

“You had a temperature of a hundred and two and a long list of flu-like symptoms. I tried to convince you to let me do it, but you refused, because I had just put you in charge and the board was in revolt. You knew it was going to be a bitch and a half to get them to take you seriously, and if you let me do it, they were never going to respect you. Remember that?”

“Vaguely.”

“You got up there and you were perfect, you were magnificent, you were Pepper Fucking Potts, and you had them eating out of your goddamn hand––”

“Tony...”

“And then you walked off stage and vomited into a potted plant? Remember that?”

Pepper pursed her lips. “I may recall.”

“He’ll take the test,” Tony said, “because he doesn’t know when to quit, and then he’ll go straight to Bruce. I’ll make sure of it.”

Pepper nodded. “Okay.” She kissed him. “I’m going to go read in bed. Make sure your kid hasn’t keeled over.”

A litany of coughs echoed down the hallway. They both winced. “Will do.” 

Pepper went upstairs. Tony waited impatiently for the kettle to boil, then made a cup of the lemon tea the kid liked, with honey to try and soothe his throat. He put it in the Stormtrooper mug Morgan had given Peter for Christmas the year before, figuring that anything that might make the kid smile was a good thing. 

The door to Peter’s room was cracked open. Tony rapped lightly. “Hey, Pete. Feel like taking a break for some tea?”

Peter sighed. It ended in a cough. “Yeah,” he said wearily, turning in his desk chair to look at Tony. “Thanks,” he murmured, accepting the mug. He did smile weakly when he saw which one it was. 

Tony found a slightly less disheveled patch of Peter’s unmade bed to sit on. “How’s the studying going?”

Peter shrugged. “I don’t know. My head hurts. I can’t take my painkillers because they make me all fuzzy, but I’m having trouble concentrating.”

“That’s because you’re sick, Pete,” Tony said gently. 

Peter shrugged. “I still have a final in the morning.”

“Right.” Tony glanced at the clock. “How is your grade in the class right now?”

“Pretty good.”

“What could you get on the test and still end up with an A-? I know you’ve done that calculation.”

“Like a C+,” Peter admitted. “But—”

“Go to bed, Pete. Drink your tea, take a hot shower and your painkillers, and go to bed. Eight hours of sleep when you’re sick is better than doing two or three more practice problems.”

Peter didn’t answer for a few seconds. He sipped his tea. His face was pale, with dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked exhausted. “Okay,” he finally mumbled, sounding defeated. 

“It’s the better option, kid, I promise you,” Tony said, reaching over to squeeze the back of Peter’s neck. He nodded, sniffled, then coughed harshly. 

Tony hovered a bit to make sure the kid actually did go to bed. He changed the sheets on Peter’s bed, while Peter took a shower, and then watched him swallow two of his painkillers. He pulled the covers up to Peter’s chin and leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. “Sleep tight,” he murmured. “If you need me, just let FRIDAY know.”

“I will,” Peter slurred, eyes already sliding shut. “Thanks, Tony.”

Tony closed Peter’s door quietly behind him. “Hey FRI?” 

“Yes, boss?” she replied via his watch. 

“If Peter is awake for more than fifteen minutes in the middle of the night, let me know. And wake me up at six, all right?” he added as he climbed the stairs. “Sleeping Beauty protocol. No need to risk waking Pepper, too.”

“Of course, boss.”

The next morning, Tony woke to his watch vibrating insistently against his wrist. He tapped it twice to turn it off, then rolled out of bed. He dressed in the dark and slipped down the stairs with his shoes in his hand. 

Peter was still in his room, though FRIDAY assured Tony that he was up and moving. Tony started the coffee, put on water to boil for tea, and started throwing a smoothie together. Peter was going to need calories to get through the test without being distracted by a growling stomach, but Tony doubted he was going to be up for eating much. 

By the time Peter finally shuffled out, Tony had a travel mug of tea with honey and lemon made up, plus the smoothie in a silicone cup with a reuseable straw. Peter stopped and blinked at everything in bewilderment. He sported a truly magnificent case of bedhead, and the shirt he had on under his unzipped hoodie was clearly on backwards. Tony could see the tags sticking up in front. 

“You didn’t have to get up,” Peter croaked out, and then coughed harshly. 

“Jesus, kid,” Tony said with a wince. “Here, drink some tea. It hurts to listen to you.”

Peter accepted the mug and took one sip, then another. Tony, meanwhile, poured the coffee he’d made into a travel mug for himself. He hadn’t been totally sure about his plan until he’d heard Peter try and talk, but now he was. 

“I should get on the road,” Peter mumbled after a minute of just standing in the kitchen, alternating sips of tea with smoothie while staring blankly at the wall.

“Yeah, about that,” Tony said. “There’s no way I’m letting you drive right now, Pete. You’re a mess, and I’m frankly worried that you’d get into an accident.”

Peter frowned. “But the test...”

“I’m not trying to talk you out of taking the test,” Tony said. “I’m going to drive you. And before you argue, I swear you’ll be doing us both a favor. You can sleep a bit more on the way, or study if you’d rather do that, and I’ll feel better knowing that you’re not falling asleep at the wheel.”

Peter stared at him without speaking for a few seconds. Then he said, “Okay.”

“Really?” Tony asked incredulously. 

Peter shrugged helplessly. “I know I should argue. But I just... I’m so fucking tired.”

“Okay, then,” Tony said, squeezing Peter’s shoulder. “Grab your smoothie and your tea. You got cough drops for the test?” Peter nodded. “Then let’s go.”

The back roads and state highways Peter took to get to Ithaca were basically deserted at this hour. A light dusting of snow had fallen in the night, but it was nothing the four-wheel drive couldn’t handle. Tony put on some music—the folk rock May had raised Peter on—at a low volume and didn’t try to get Peter to talk. Peter drank the tea and most of the smoothie, but about fifteen minutes into the drive, Tony looked over and saw that he’d fallen asleep. 

“Hey, FRI,” Tony said. “When Bruce gets up, let him know I’m bringing him a sick Spiderkid later today.”

“Will do, boss.”

Peter slept until they reached Ithaca. They were a little early; the test started at nine, and it was just shy of 8:30. Tony pulled into line at a drive-through Starbucks and reached over to gently shake Peter’s shoulder. “Pete. Hey, time to wake up.”

“Mmph.” Peter dragged his eyes open. “Where are we?”

“Starbucks. Want your usual?”

“Yeah.” Peter yawned. He sat quietly while Tony ordered––a quadruple Americano for himself, and a latte with an extra shot and two pumps of caramel for Peter. He woke up a little once he started sipping at his coffee and helped Tony navigate the campus to drop him off as close to the lecture hall where he’d take his test as possible. They were still early, but the doors were open and students were heading in to take their seats. 

Tony pulled up to the curb, ignoring the No Parking Anytime sign, and turned to look at Peter. “How’re you feeling, kiddo?”

“Not exactly a hundred percent,” Peter admitted, “but better than if I’d studied all night.”

“You’re gonna nail it. You got your cough drops?”

Peter held up a bag of mentholated honey-lemon cough drops. 

“Okay. Break a leg.”

Peter nodded. He shoved a cough drop into his mouth and got out of the car, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. Tony watched him march into the hall along with a stream of other first year engineering majors, feeling a familiar mix of pride and worry in the pit of his stomach. That had been strange to him once, he thought––the idea that he could be both so proud of his kid and so worried about him at the same time. These days it was pretty much just the normal state of affairs. 

Someone knocked on the window. “Sir, you can’t park here.”

Tony rolled it down and looked at the campus security officer. “Shall I just write you the check for the violation now or wait for you to send it in the mail? Because unless you’re going to have the car towed with me still in it, I don’t intend to move from this spot.”

It turned out that being the savior of the universe was good for _some_ things. The security officer decided to go enforce parking somewhere else. 

***

Two hours and fifty minutes later, Peter emerged from the lecture hall and trudged back toward the car. He opened the door and more or less collapsed into the front seat, clutching his backpack on his lap. He started coughing, deep-chested hacks like the night before, then leaned back out the open car door and spat onto the ground. 

Tony grimaced. He decided not to comment. “Should I ask how the test went?”

“It went okay for the first two hours, but then the cough drops kind of stopped working. The last hour was the longest hour of my life.” Peter closed his eyes. “But I’m pretty sure I passed.”

Tony squeezed Peter’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you, kid. Are you going to argue with me if I take you to see Bruce now?”

Peter sighed, opening his eyes. “I really just want my bed, Tony.”

“You need antibiotics. But let me see if Bruce makes house calls,” Tony conceded, when Peter continued to gaze at him pathetically. 

Bruce, God bless him, agreed to come and see Peter at the lake house that afternoon, so instead of driving down to the compound as he’d planned, Tony drove them home. They arrived to an empty house, since Pepper was at meetings in the city and Morgan was at preschool. Tony chivvied Peter inside and sent him to change and get into bed while he made more tea. The poor kid had coughed all the way home, and he was clearly exhausted. The only things keeping him together had been sheer force of will and a stubborn streak that could power an arc reactor. Now that the test was over, he was crumbling fast.

Bruce had recommended a humidifier, so Tony went digging for theirs in one of the closets while he waited for the water to boil. He gave it a quick wash and filled it with water, then made Peter’s tea for him.

Peter was sitting propped up in bed, head resting listlessly against the headboard, when Tony came in. He looked like a puppet with all his strings cut, sitting propped against a wall. 

“Did you take your painkillers?” Tony asked. Peter nodded. “Sip on this, then,” he added, handing him his tea, “while I get the humidifier plugged in.”

The humidifier was small but mighty, sending a plume of steam into the bone-dry winter air of Peter’s bedroom. Tony wished he’d thought of it yesterday. Peter was drooping over his tea, looking as though he was in danger of dropping it. Tony settled on the bed next to him and put his left arm––his flesh-and-blood arm––around Peter’s shoulders. Peter settled into his side immediately, and Tony deftly steadied the bottom of his mug to keep it from spilling. 

“How’re you feeling, Pete?” Tony asked, doing a quick temperature check the old fashioned way, with the back of his hand. 

“Bad,” Peter admitted. “But better, now. Painkillers are good.”

“They are.” Tony glanced at his watch. “Bruce should be here in an hour or so. Why don’t you take a nap in the meantime?”

“Mmm, okay.” Peter leaned against him and closed his eyes. “Tony?” he murmured after a moment. 

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for driving me today.”

Tony smiled to himself. “No problem, kid. Thanks for not arguing too much about it.”

Peter huffed a quiet laugh. “I mean it. I dunno if I could’ve made it on my own.” He snuggled in closer. “M’glad I decided to live here. S’so much better than the dorm.”

“I’m glad, too, kid,” Tony whispered. He knew that as a parent, the goal was to get the kid out on his own eventually, and he had no doubt that that would happen. But in the meantime, he was glad to steal back some of the time he and Peter had missed. He’d never had the chance to be there for Peter like this before––not just on the big, superhero stuff, but also the small, everyday stuff. The very idea had terrified Tony, once upon a time, and now he craved it. 

Peter made a sleepy noise, leaning more heavily against Tony, and Tony curled his arm protectively around him. 

“Love you, Pete,” Tony said softly. 

“L’ve you, too, T’ny,” Peter mumbled and pressed his face into Tony’s side. He sighed, all vestiges of tension leaking out of him as he fell asleep. 

Tony smiled and allowed himself to indulge in a rare moment of utter contentment, where everything in his life seemed right at the same time. He knew it wouldn’t last forever, but that just meant it was worth savoring all the more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working on some Christmas fic, but I'm definitely thinking there needs to be a hammock scene next for this one. And maybe one where Tony is the sleepy one? I'm open to suggestions.


	3. Stoned in the Hammock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the revelations of living with the Starks had been just how many bad days Tony still had—days when the pain in his side flared up, when he couldn’t wear the prosthesis because his shoulder was so inflamed and tender, when he got migraines and vertigo for no reason that Bruce or Cho could discern. It was only once or twice a month, but that was a lot more often than Peter had realized, since Tony had managed to hide basically all of it from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to leave this fic open. I love writing these fics in this universe and I might very well write more of them. 
> 
> Warnings in this chapter for some very minor drug use (i.e. marijuana gummies) for pain management.
> 
> Thanks to Fuzzyboo for the beta read!
> 
> (ETA: Now with the four missing paragraphs right in the middle that an open HTML tag eated.)

_Hi Peter, quick question. When are you planning on getting home tonight?_

Peter frowned at Pepper’s message. It was unusual for him to hear from her in the middle of the day. Tony texted him a lot, and usually if there was a message from Pepper, he passed it on. 

_Probably eight or so? I have a group meeting about a project, then a lecture, then I was going to study with some friends for a midterm on Thursday. Why?_

“Parker, who the hell are you texting?”

“Pepper,” Peter replied absently. 

The table went dead silent.

Peter looked up. He’d grabbed lunch in one of the dining halls with a bunch of people from his engineering intro sequence after their morning lecture. All of whom were now staring at him. 

“Pepper,” Mike said. Peter thought it must’ve been him who’d asked. “You mean Pepper _Potts_ , don’t you?”

“Uh, yeah?” Peter said. 

“You know,” Sandi said, “I forget for days at a time that you’re Spiderman. And then you go and just casually mention that you’re texting with Pepper fucking Potts, and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, Peter’s life is _ridiculous_.’”

Everyone laughed. Peter smiled weakly, relieved that most of them seemed to be taking it in stride. But Pepper hadn’t texted back, and now Peter was getting anxious, imagining why. It was probably nothing; she probably just wanted him to watch Morgan or something that evening. 

Probably. 

“Yeah,” Peter agreed. “Hey, um, I actually need to call her. I’ll catch you guys later for study group.”

He grabbed his backpack and left with a wave. Outside, he found a vaguely secluded spot and called Pepper. 

She picked up on the second ring. “Hi Peter.” There was a harried, tired note in her voice. Peter wondered if she hadn’t slept well.

“Hey, everything all right?” he asked, trying not to sound too anxious.

“Yes, it’s just—Tony’s having a bad day, and I need to go into the city, possibly overnight. I’m taking Morgan with me and dropping her with your aunt and Happy, but I was hoping you’d be home soon. It’s fine, though, you don’t need to change your plans. He’s probably just going to sleep all day. He’d be mad at me for even telling you.”

“Oh,” Peter said. One of the revelations of living with the Starks had been just how many bad days Tony still had—days when the pain in his side flared up, when he couldn’t wear the prosthesis because his shoulder was so inflamed and tender, when he got migraines and vertigo for no reason that Bruce or Cho could discern. It was only once or twice a month, but that was a lot more often than Peter had realized, since Tony had managed to hide basically all of it from him.

“It’s fine, like I said,” Pepper said, when Peter let the silence stretch too long. “If he wasn’t okay, I’d cancel my meetings and stay.”

“If he _was_ ,” Peter countered, “you wouldn’t have texted me to begin with.”

“That’s... true,” Pepper conceded. 

Peter did a quick mental calculation. “I really need to go to my project meeting,” he finally decided aloud. “If I don’t go, they’re going to stick me with all the really boring, tedious crap no one wants to do. But the lecture will be recorded, and I can video call into the study session. So I can probably be home by two?”

Pepper audibly sighed in relief. “Thank you, Peter. I’ll feel a thousand times better knowing you’re at home. You know the drill by now, right?”

“Yep. I’ll call if I have any questions.”

Pepper thanked him again, sounding so relieved that Peter knew he’d made the right call. 

The project meeting was shorter than Peter had worried it might be. Three of the five members of the group had class at 1:15, so there was lots of incentive to get to work and focus. Peter had always dreaded group work in high school, because even in a school full of brainiacs he’d always gotten stuck with more than his fair share, but college was different— _everyone_ in his group cared. Sometimes too much. 

It was a little after one by the time Peter was able to escape and head to his car, and just shy of two when he turned off the state highway and onto the meandering road up to the lake house. Peter had been dealing with a simmering feeling of anxiety all through the meeting and the drive home, but it dissipated as soon as he’d parked.

The house was quiet. Peter thought at first that Tony might be upstairs in bed, but then he spied him asleep in the recliner in the living room. He was wearing his Cornell hoodie with the right sleeve pinned up, and his head was tipped to the side, his mouth open slightly. Peter smiled at him fondly, then surveyed the array of items on the end table next to Tony’s chair.

Tony staunchly refused to take opioids for pain management; he insisted that he hadn’t kicked an alcohol dependency to end up addicted to Vicodin. That had caused some issues in the beginning, but at this point, they’d found something that more or less worked. The end table held all his bad day staples: ibuprofen for the inflammation around his prosthesis site, Imitrex for his migraines, and a packet of Tony’s favorite brand of cannabis gummies for general pain relief.

Peter grinned to himself, already looking forward to stoned Tony. Stoned Tony was cuddly and agreeable and prone to telling Peter he loved him for no reason whatsoever. It really did take the edge off of Tony’s pain better than anything else, but Pepper had been known to mutter that it made things easier on _all_ of them. Peter kind of had to agree.

It didn’t look like Tony had eaten anything for lunch, so Peter went into the kitchen and started putting a sandwich together for him. Tony must not have been sleeping very soundly, because Peter heard him start stirring just a minute or two later. 

“Pep?” he called groggily. 

“No, it’s me,” Peter replied. “I’m just getting you something to eat. Don’t get up. You want chips or pretzels?”

“Pretzels,” Tony said. Peter added a handful to the plate and grabbed a lemon-flavored seltzer out of the fridge. He took the food into the living room, handed it to Tony, and then started clearing stuff off the end table so he’d have a place to put it. 

“Thanks,” Tony said around a mouthful of sandwich. Peter pulled the ottoman up close to the recliner and sat down. Tony squinted at him, then swallowed. “Didn’t you have... stuff today? You said last night you’d be gone until after dinner.”

Peter shrugged. “Nothing I can’t do from here. I’ll watch the recording of my lecture later, and I’ll video call into my study group at six.”

Tony looked unhappy. “Pepper called you, didn’t she? She shouldn’t have done that.”

“Yes,” Peter said firmly, “she should have.”

“You shouldn’t have to disrupt your life for me.”

“Oh, like you and Pepper didn’t rearrange _your_ lives so that I could come and live with you?” 

“That’s different, you’re my kid.”

“And you’re my...” Peter hesitated ever so briefly. “Tony. You’re my Tony. I’d do the same for May, you know.”

Tony sighed, looking away. “I want to say that’s different.”

“Well, it’s not.”

“Yeah. I know.” Tony drew a deep breath. “Thanks for coming home. I really do appreciate it.”

Peter reached over and squeezed Tony’s ankle. “Don’t mention it. How’s your vertigo?”

“No vertigo this time around,” Tony said. “No migraine either, Pep left the Imitrex with me just in case. Just a lot of soreness and weakness all along my right side, and a mundane headache. And the prosthesis was killing me this morning.”

“Mmm, okay. I was thinking...”

“What?” Tony prompted. 

Peter shrugged. “It’s a pretty nice day. Want to get stoned and lie in the hammock?”

Tony laughed, some of the tension leaving his face. “That’s why you’re my favorite, Pete. Yeah, let’s do it.”

Peter left Tony taking a second round of meds, including one of the gummies, and went to get the hammock out of storage. He set it up in its usual spot by the water, under the old oak tree where Tony and Pepper had gotten married––both the first time, while Peter had been dusted, and the second time, last summer, because Tony had wanted wedding photos with his entire family in them. Peter had pointed out that he didn’t need a whole second wedding to do that, but Tony had been pretty _extra_ about the whole thing. Pepper had taken it in stride, as she usually did when Tony got that way about something. 

Once the hammock was set up, Peter ran back up to the house. He made sure they both had water bottles and snacks, and he packed his tablet so he could work when Tony inevitably fell asleep. He grabbed a throw blanket, too, because it was still a little early in the year to be outside for long stretches, though the hammock was tightly woven and would provide some insulation on its own. 

He kept a firm grip on Tony as they navigated the path down toward the lake. Tony tended to be unsteady on his feet on days like this, off-kilter without the weight of the arm and prone to dizzy spells and light-headedness. It said something that Tony didn’t even protest Peter’s arm, just hung on and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. 

They reached the hammock without incident. Tony sat down in it and kicked his shoes off before swinging his legs over. Peter handed him the water bottles, snacks, tablet, and blanket before following suit. 

The hammock swung gently once that they were both in it. It was mostly closed, more of a cocoon than a hammock, but Peter could see the tree limbs, newly budded, waving slowly overhead. He got them sorted with the blanket, set the bottles of water and snacks between them, and tucked his tablet in beside him for later. 

“Good call, kid,” Tony said, relaxing. He yawned. “Missed this.”

“Yeah. We should invent a heated hammock so we can do this all year long.”

Tony hummed. “Yeah, but there’s something about it being a summer-only activity, you know? Lazy afternoons with you and Morgan... nowhere to be...”

“True.” Peter shifted slightly. “You comfortable? I’m not putting too much weight anywhere?”

“Nah, I’m good.” Peter felt Tony’s head drop so it rested on top of Peter’s. “How’re you doing? You’ve been really busy this semester.”

“Yeah, I’m taking that extra class, and one of my other classes is really project-heavy. Since everyone else lives on campus, they want to meet at strange hours.”

Tony made a vague listening noise. “You regret not living on campus?”

“No,” Peter said, snuggling closer. “No, I really don’t.”

“Think you might want to next year?”

“I don’t know.” Peter was quiet for a few moments, thinking. Tony stayed quiet, too, letting him. “I think... I don’t really want to live on campus. Junior year, people start moving into apartments and stuff off-campus. That might be fun, if I lived with people I know.”

“Whatever you want, kid,” Tony said. “We’re happy to have you with us another year, but just say the word and we’ll find you a place closer to campus.”

“Thanks. I think I want to stay another year. This has been... it’s been really good for me.”

Tony rubbed a hand down Peter’s arm. “You seem like you’re doing better.”

“I think I am. Dr. Malin’s helped a lot. But mostly it’s been this. Being here. Feeling safe for the first time in... in a really long time.”

“I’m glad.”

“And I like... I like that I can help you and Pepper and Morgan, too. Picking Morgan up from school and working side-by-side in the office with Pepper. Doing this sort of thing with you. May and I always took care of each other, but she hasn’t really needed me since––since she and Happy got together. I missed it.” Peter drew a shaky breath. “I’m just... I’m really grateful,” he said, surprising even himself when his voice broke. “I know you keep saying that I’m your kid and you love me, but still––not everyone would do for their biological kids the stuff you’ve done for me. So I hope you know how much I appreciate it.”

“I do know, Pete,” Tony said softly. “And you _do_ take good care of us. Today, even... I know I was grouchy at first about Pepper calling you, but I’m glad she did. If you hadn’t, I’d still be in that chair, trying to convince myself to get up and grab a granola bar or something.”

“I’m glad she called me, too. Though that reminds me.” Peter pulled out his tablet and set an alarm for 5:30. “Just in case we both fall asleep.”

“Makes sense. I’m starting to feel sort of fuzzy. Hurts less all over.”

“Good. I don’t like it when you’re in pain.”

“Makes two of us.”

Tony fell quiet. Peter could tell from his breathing and his heartbeat that he wasn’t asleep yet, but he was probably drifting. Peter knew he should pull out his tablet and do some of his reading, but he held off. 

Dr. Malin had taught him to tune into his senses and really live in his body in a particular moment. He tried to do that now. He felt the cool air on his face in contrast to the warmth of the blanket. He watched the way the limbs of the old oak tree moved in the breeze overhead, slowly, back and forth. He smelled the lake water––after months of frozen sterility, it smelled alive again. 

There had been a time, not that long ago, when Peter had thought he’d never feel like this again: safe, calm, comfortable, loved. Anxiety and depression had reached their tendrils into every aspect of his life. They had stolen his relationships, convincing him that Ned and MJ were better off without him, that May didn’t want him around, that Tony had his own family to worry about and didn’t need to always be picking up Peter’s messes. They had made things he’d once enjoyed––physics and chemistry, tinkering in the lab, web swinging––into chores. Other things, like building with Legos and reading _Star Wars_ rumor boards on Reddit, he’d stopped doing altogether. 

Most of those things, Peter had gotten back eventually. The exception was his friendship with MJ. They’d seen each other over the winter break, and things had been... fine. Peter had texted her a few times since the start of the semester, and she’d always answered, but it still didn’t feel like it used to. He wasn’t sure it ever would. Ned said he just had to give it time, but it had been a whole year now. 

Peter sighed to himself. He tried not to think too much about what might’ve been with MJ, if not for Quentin Beck and his terrible timing. It tended to really bum him out whenever he did.

“I can hear you thinking,” Tony murmured without opening his eyes. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Peter said. “Just thinking.”

“Mmm. Dangerous. What about?” 

Peter hesitated. “MJ,” he finally admitted. 

“Something happen?”

“No. Nothing. I just... wish things had gone differently, and sometimes I can’t help thinking about it. That’s all.”

Tony opened his eyes and looked at Peter. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I wish I had advice to offer.”

Peter shrugged. “I think it’s like you said before. Our baggage just doesn’t fit. But I wish I hadn’t hurt her so much.”

“You were hurting pretty badly yourself at the time.”

“I know. But...” Peter swallowed. “I still regret it.” 

Tony’s answer this time was to squeeze Peter a little tighter, pull him a little closer. Peter smiled and burrowed in. Tony couldn’t save him from heartbreak or regret or even from making bad choices, but Peter knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t want to be saved from those things anyway. What he wanted was exactly what Tony was giving him: a soft place to land, a safe place to be, a non-judgmental ear, and a shoulder to cry on. 

Tony’s breathing evened out, his head resting more heavily against Peter’s. Peter picked up his tablet and opened up his reading for his philosophy course. He didn’t feel super focused, but even if he just read himself into a nap, it was better to try and do something. 

He’d read two paragraphs when a text popped up. _How are things?_ Pepper wanted to know. 

Peter smiled. _Everything’s fine. First hammock nap of the year._

She sent back three thumbs up and two heart emojis. _You’re the best, Peter. Can’t imagine what we’d do without you._

Peter’s smile widened, pleased at Pepper’s praise, even if he didn’t really think it was true. _Same._

Peter had been pretty sure he’d fall asleep not long into his reading; he was almost conditioned to fall asleep in the hammock now, he’d done it so many times. And Kirkegaard was hardly a page-turner. He got through a few pages before he gave up trying to hold his eyes open, put the tablet facedown on his chest, and closed his eyes.

He must have fallen more deeply asleep than usual, because the next thing he knew, Tony was shaking him gently. “Pete. Hey, wake up. Your alarm’s going off.”

“Mmm, five more minutes,” Peter mumbled, and pulled the blanket over his face. 

The quiet music he’d set as his alarm turned off. “It’s 5:30, kid. You have a study session at six, don’t you?”

Peter tried to blink the cobwebs from his brain. “Oh. Yeah.” Peter rubbed his eyes. He must’ve been right in the deepest part of his REM cycle. “How’re you feeling?”

“A little better, I think, but we’ll find out for sure when I go to get out of this thing.”

“Yeah.” Peter stretched carefully. “Ugh. Okay. I guess we do have to get up.” He swung his legs carefully out of the hammock, shoving his feet somewhat haphazardly back into his shoes. He turned and helped Tony sit up, and gathered up the undrunk water bottles and uneaten snacks into a bundle while he put his shoes on. Then they carefully made their way back up to the house.

“Verdict?” Peter asked once they were inside. 

“Better,” Tony said decisively. “Think I’ll go take a shower.” 

“Be––”

“––careful, I know. I’ll use the one down here with the handle-bar, how’s that?”

“Thanks,” Peter said, relieved he didn’t have to suggest it. Tony didn’t like to use the accessible bathroom on the first floor. It reminded him too much of the first weeks of his recovery, when he’d been in a wheelchair and unable to do much of anything, including shower, without help. But he must’ve been feeling mellow and sleepy still, because he just kissed Peter on the forehead, mumbled _Love you, kid_ , and shuffled off down the hallway. 

Peter still had a few minutes, so he made up a snack of cheese, crackers, and apples, taking half for himself to munch on during the study session and leaving the rest for Tony. Then he logged into the Google Hangout room he and his study group friends used. 

Sandi had agreed to have him up on her laptop; she was already present and logged in. They chatted for a bit while the others trickled in, grabbing seats around the table in the room they’d reserved in the library. They started by walking through the problems in the practice exam they’d done over the weekend. Peter had done pretty well, but he found that explaining his process always helped him solidify what he knew, so he never minded going through it. 

He was in the middle of explaining how he’d arrived at an especially tricky answer when he realized that everyone in the group had stopped listening to him. They were staring at something behind Peter, mouths hanging open. 

Peter glanced over his shoulder and realized that Tony, dressed in a threadbare Black Sabbath shirt and pajama bottoms, was grabbing the plate of snacks Peter had left on the counter. His wet hair and empty right sleeve were both clearly visible in the webcam, along with the residual scarring on his neck from the snap. 

_Holy shit_ , Peter heard someone whisper. 

“Uh, Tony?” Peter said. 

Tony turned around and saw he was on the webcam. He looked startled but recovered quickly, giving them a wave. “Hi, Peter’s friends. Don’t mind me. Study hard and I’ll give you all jobs.”

With that, Tony wandered back into the living room. Peter heard the TV turn on. 

There was a moment of dead silence. Then Mike said, “Um. Does he mean that?”

Peter shrugged. “Probably.”

“Seriously, Peter,” Sandi said. “Your life. Is. Ridiculous.”

Peter grinned. He glanced over to the living room, where Tony had reclaimed his spot in the recliner. “Yeah. I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone!


	4. Red-Eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, hi, not dead, just struggling with a fic that doesn't want to behave. I just went away for a few days and decided to write a new chapter of "A Soft Place to Land" to clear my head. Thanks to Fuzzyboo for beta reading and pointing out the internal inconsistencies.

The sound of gravel crunching pulled Tony out of sleep. He lay still for a moment, listening; through the cracked-open bedroom window, he heard the trunk of a car close, and then the sound of a suitcase being pulled up the walk.

Peter must have been tired. He dragged his suitcase up the porch stairs, rather than lifting it. _Thump. Thump. Thump._

Pepper was still sleeping soundly. Tony slipped out of bed and down the stairs, just in time for Peter to key himself in the front door with a relieved sigh. 

“Hey,” Tony said, keeping his voice low. “Welcome home.”

“Hey,” Peter returned, smiling sheepishly as he toed off his shoes and hung up his jacket. “Did I wake you up?”

“Yeah, but I think I was almost awake. How was the flight?”

Peter made a face. “Somehow too long and too short. Too long to be comfortable, but too short to get enough sleep.”

“You should have let me send the jet.”

“Yeah, no. It’s one thing on Avengers business, but not for the everyday stuff. The sneak-attack upgrade was more than enough.”

Tony wrinkled his nose. “You can’t fly _coach_. What if someone recognizes you? Can you imagine the headlines? ‘Tony Stark’s Protege Flies Economy’.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a story.”

“They’d find a way to make it one,” Tony said, with a finely honed cynicism. “But enough of that—do you want to crash for a bit or should I put on the coffee?”

“Coffee,” Peter said decisively. “I’ll crash later but I’m okay for now.”

“You got it.” Tony slipped an arm around Peter’s shoulders as they went into the kitchen, squeezing lightly. He didn’t miss the way the kid leaned into him, almost letting his head drop to rest on Tony’s shoulder. He would definitely need to grab a nap at some point today.

Tony was, if he was honest, pretty goddamn curious about the trip. Peter had been unusually close mouthed about the whole thing, saying only that MJ had invited him at the last minute to visit her in Berkeley at the start of his summer break. Tony hadn’t known what to make of it, because the last he’d heard they were still awkwardly texting, and going from that to a visit seemed like a big jump. But Peter had seemed resolved—and he hadn’t asked for Tony’s advice, either. Tony had quietly upgraded him to first class and kept his mouth shut. To Peter’s face, anyway. He and May had texted a lot, but she was just as in the dark as Tony was. 

“So how was California?” Tony asked once he’d gotten the coffee burbling away. He started pulling stuff out of the fridge to make bacon and pancakes. 

“Okay,” Peter said. “A lot warmer than it is here right now.”

“What’d you guys do?”

“Uhh... we went hiking in the redwoods—”

“Hiking? MJ?”

Peter laughed. “That’s what I said, but it was pretty amazing. The trees are so tall and so _old_. We climbed one of them and took a bunch of photos. Well, I climbed it. MJ came along for the ride.”

“That sounds completely terrifying.”

“I webbed her on, and I had my webshooters with me just in case. I’m an adrenaline-junkie, but I’m not a moron.”

Tony conceded the point. “You get to the ocean?”

“Yep. We went to Monterey and rented kayaks. But we also just hung out on campus a lot. Her friends are pretty cool. Some of them smoke kind of a lot of weed, but they weren’t, like, hardcore about it.”

Tony raised his eyebrows at Peter. “I’m having a hard time imagining Michelle Jones as a stoner.”

“No, no,” Peter shook his head, “she’s not, just, some of her friends are. And they’re all, like, Theater and English and Gender Studies majors.”

“Hey, you know, the fuzzies are people, too. Pepper has a Master’s degree in French literature, and look how that turned out. She’s always pushing for the company to hire more liberal arts majors, says they think differently.”

“Hmm.” Tony started cracking eggs into a bowl. “She’s vegetarian now,” Peter said after a few seconds. “Almost vegan but she’s having a hard time giving up cheese. She kept finding vegan restaurants for us.”

Tony paused. “Should I hold the bacon?”

Peter waved his hands. “No, jeez, I’m _starving_. I was _so hungry_ all the time, Tony, you have no idea. We’d eat lunch and by two o’clock I’d be ready for a second lunch.”

Tony chuckled. “Yeah, I don’t think you’re destined for veganism, Pete.” 

“No, probably not.”

Peter fell quiet then, but when Tony glanced over, he was smiling, watching Tony as he moved around the kitchen. Tony raised an eyebrow, silently inquiring about the lack of Peter Parker chatter. 

Peter shrugged. “I’m just glad to be home.”

“I’m glad to have you home,” Tony said, and gave him a flour-y hug and a kiss on the head before going back to flipping pancakes.

Pepper and Morgan were drawn downstairs not long after by the smell of bacon, pancakes, and—in Pepper’s case—coffee. Morgan vaulted over the last three steps, ran to the kitchen, and leaped into Peter’s arms, refusing to let go. She’d been grumpy the whole time he’d been gone, wanting to video call him every night before bed and inconsolable when it hadn’t been possible.

“Promise me you won’t go away again,” Morgan demanded, hanging onto Peter like a koala. “It was _awful_.”

Peter laughed. “I can’t promise I’m never going to leave again, Mo.”

“Yes, you can,” she insisted, frowning at him. 

Peter caught Tony’s eye. Tony shrugged, refusing to intervene. Peter generally knew how to handle Morgan anyway. “Tell you what,” Peter said, shifting Morgan higher on his hip so he could look her straight in the eye, “I promise I won’t leave again for a while, how’s that? I’ll be here all summer, working with your mom and dad, and in July we’re all going on vacation together, remember? We’re gonna go to Bermuda and see the pink sand, and we’ll be together all the time for two whole weeks. And I’m living here all next year, too.”

“ _Good_ ,” she said decisively, and refused to let go of Peter until Pepper forced her to sit in her own seat to eat her breakfast. 

Over breakfast, Peter showed them pictures on his phone from his trip—the giant redwoods he’d mentioned, including the dizzying view from the top of the one he’d climbed, plus sea otters, downtown Monterey, and the Berkeley campus. There were also about a million selfies with him and MJ. Peter mostly flipped past those, but Tony caught the occasional glimpse, enough to see how happy they both looked in all of them. 

Tony was trying to decide whether he could just straight up ask where things stood, or whether he had to wait for Peter to get around to telling him, when Morgan made the decision for everyone.

“So is MJ your girlfriend again?” she asked Peter, brow slightly furrowed. 

Peter took a deep breath. He didn’t look at Pepper or Tony as he said, “No. We’re just friends now.”

The furrow in Morgan’s brow deepened. “Why?”

“Because sometimes it’s better that way,” Peter said. “Especially when you’re on opposite sides of the country.”

“But I like MJ,” Morgan protested. 

Peter smiled. “Me too. We’ll still get to see her, though. She’ll visit New York, and maybe we can even go see her in California.”

Her eyes widened. “Can we see the sea otters?”

“Sure.”

“Can we _pet_ one?”

“No,” chorused everyone at once. 

Morgan pouted. Pepper prodded her into finishing her pancakes, while Tony reached over and squeezed Peter’s shoulder. Peter shot him a rueful smile and grabbed another piece of bacon off the plate in the center of the table. 

Morgan pretty much monopolized Peter’s attention all morning, dragging him out to the treehouse to have a tea party with her stuffed animals and play Spiderman. Tony let them be, knowing that Morgan had a playdate with her friend Meredith that afternoon. He’d get Peter to himself soon enough. 

Morgan whined a bit when it was time to go, but Tony managed to get her into a clean set of clothes and out the door with Pepper only a few minutes later than intended. 

“Do you want me to take Morgan out to dinner?” Pepper asked him as she kissed him goodbye. She and Meredith’s mom had grand plans for “mimosas and trash TV” while the kids played. 

“Nah, let’s do family dinner. Pizza okay?”

“Sounds good.” She kissed him one last time. “Don’t pry too much.”

Tony held his hand up. “I promise to pry exactly the right amount.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “Come on, Morgan,” she called, “time to go!”

Morgan heaved an enormous sigh, but she got up from her spot on the floor in the living room, where she and Peter were coloring together. She hugged Peter goodbye, gave Tony a kiss on the cheek, and tripped out the door with Pepper. 

The silence was deafening. Peter pushed himself up off the floor and onto the sofa, grabbing the remote. Tony went and dropped down next to him, watching as he scrolled idly through the streaming options. 

“You hungry, kid?” Tony asked. He wasn’t, yet, but Peter has probably burned through all the pancakes and bacon by now.

“Sort of.” Peter yawned. 

“Ready for a nap?”

“Maybe.” Peter leaned his head back to look up at Tony. “Hammock?”

Tony grinned. It was a perfect early summer day for it. “Hammock.”

Tony had put the hammock away before a rainstorm a few days earlier, so they had to pull it out and set it up again. When they were done, Peter went back into the house and came out with a bag full of stuff—snacks, water, various devices—and the two of them climbed in. They settled into their usual configuration, with Peter tucked into Tony’s uninjured side, head on his shoulder, with Tony’s flesh hand shifting slowly through Peter’s curls. 

Peter pulled out a bottled smoothie and cracked it open. He offered it to Tony, who shook his head. Peter sipped at it. 

They were both quiet for a while, just swinging gently back and forth. Tony was starting to think about asking Peter if he was all right, when Peter spoke. “You can ask, you know,” he said. “I heard Pepper telling you not to pry, but it’s okay with me if you do.”

“Oh,” Tony said, surprised at Peter’s forthrightness. He wasn’t a secretive kid most of the time, but Tony hadn’t expected him to be so direct about this in particular. “Um. Okay. How’d things go with MJ?”

Peter shrugged one shoulder. “They went about as well as I hoped they would. I mean, I didn’t go thinking we were going to get back together. I knew she wasn’t interested in long distance.”

Tony waited. When Peter didn’t go on, he said, “I’m sensing a _but_ here.”

“Yeah.” Peter sighed. “I didn’t realize until I got there... I don’t think MJ’s ever coming back. To New York, I mean.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean? Did she say something?”

Peter shook his head. “No, but... you should see how happy she is, Tony. She’s so happy. I didn’t even realize she was _un_ happy here until I saw her there and was like, _Oh_. She’s MJ but _more_ and _lighter_ , and I just... I don’t think she’s ever coming back.”

The kid’s voice cracked on the last word. Peter turned his face so it was pressed against Tony’s chest. Tony rubbed between his shoulder blades. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”

Peter sniffled, then wiped his eyes. “Yeah, me too. It was still a really good trip. I liked seeing her so happy. It made me happy, too, even if... even if I wish I could make her that happy. And we talked a lot, about everything. I think we can be friends again now.”

“I’m glad. I know that bugged you.”

“Yeah.” Peter fell silent. Tony rubbed the back of his neck. The kid was more relaxed now, and Tony was pretty sure he’d fall asleep before long. But to his surprise, Peter stirred again, only a minute or two later, clearing his throat.

“Um. Something else happened while I was out there. I feel like it’s weird for me to tell you, but I really want to talk about it with someone, and I don’t trust Ned not to be awkward about it.”

“What is it?” Tony asked, when Peter didn’t go on. 

Peter coughed. “So, uh... when we went to Monterey, we got a hotel room. A nice one, where we could hear the ocean. It had a balcony and stuff... anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, we, um, we had sex. For the first time. So. Yeah. That... happened.”

There’d been a time in his life when Tony had been impulsive, to say the least. When he would’ve said the first thing that popped into his head, no matter how inappropriate or rude or damaging. But one of the things he’d been working on, ever since his and Peter’s big blow up over MIT, was not saying the first thing—or even the first five things—that popped into his head.

He had an initial flash of profound discomfort at the idea of Peter having sex, probably the same as any parent would. But he managed to muscle his way past that. He still didn’t trust himself not to say the wrong thing, so instead he asked a question. 

“How do you feel about it?”

Peter made an uncertain noise. “You don’t want to know if we were safe?”

Tony shrugged. “I assume you were, knowing both of you. Weren’t you?”

“Yeah, of course,” Peter said, sounding mildly offended even though he’d prompted the question. “MJ has an IUD, and we used a condom anyway.”

Tony nodded. “Okay. So how do you feel about it?”

“I don’t... I don’t know. Good, I think.” Peter was quiet for a little while. Tony almost physically bit his tongue to keep from filling the silence. Finally, Peter said, “It was really nice. I was kind of stressed out about it before, but she wasn’t, and that helped a lot.”

Tony hummed softly. “Was it your first time, Pete?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. And then, “It wasn’t hers. I felt weird about that at first, but in the end I was just glad one of us knew what they were doing.” He drew a deep breath. “I wanted it to be MJ. Even if... even if we’re over, I wanted her to... I don’t know. To always mean that to me. We had a long talk first about what it meant, so that neither of us was confused. And then it was just... it was good. So... yeah. I feel good about it. But also a little bit sad.”

“That’s okay, kid.” Tony brushed a hand through Peter’s curls. “All things considered, that’s not a bad way to feel about your first time.” He didn’t add that it was a hell of a lot better than Tony felt about his own—which, to be honest, he barely remembered. He’d been young—too young—and wasted, and he didn’t think the woman involved, whose name he couldn’t remember, if he’d ever known it, had felt anything towards him at all. He recognized now that it had taken him years to get over the suffocated emotional fallout from the experience. He was glad that Peter had chosen to be with someone who loved him. 

“You took that really well,” Peter mumbled. 

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Did you think I was going to throw a fit and give you an abstinence-only lecture? I’m sorry, have you met me?”

Peter laughed. “I guess not. I dunno, it’s weird. I don’t want to think about you having sex, and I’m still scarred from that time I walked in on May and Happy.”

Tony shuddered. “We’re all still scarred from that, kid. And it’s weird for me, I won’t lie, and maybe kind of scary. But I trust you. And I think this was a good choice you made.”

“Thanks,” Peter muttered, sounding embarrassed but pleased. “Uh... don’t tell May, please. I know you guys talk about me a lot—”

“I won’t,” Tony said. “I don’t tell her things you tell me in confidence.”

“I know.” Peter sighed, sounding sleepy and relaxed. “Thanks for listening.”

“Anytime. Do I need to set an alarm? You got anything to wake up for?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Tony knew they’d be woken up by the Morgan alarm the moment she and Pepper came home. But that still gave them several hours. 

Peter dozed off only a few minutes later, lulled to sleep by the gentle motion of the hammock. Tony drifted, watching the play of light through the leaves overhead. Holding his kid and not thinking about anything except how lucky he was. He gave May and Ben the lion’s share of the credit for Peter turning out the way he had, but Tony knew that not every kid was as open with his parents as Peter was with him. He hoped that meant he was getting something right. 

His phone, lying face down on Tony’s chest, buzzed. Tony blinked out of his light doze and glanced at it. 

May had written, _How’s our kid?_

Tony smiled, glancing down at the mop of brown curls that was all of Peter that he could see from this angle. He could feel him, though, resting heavily all along Tony’s side. He hadn’t so much as twitched at the sound of the phone. 

_Just fine_ , he wrote back with his free hand, and closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, don't kill me, I love Peter and MJ but I also can't get over how young they are and how much MJ, in particular, would have to give up to be with Peter. I kind of love the idea of them getting back together as adults, but I have a hard time making it work for them in college. 
> 
> Y'all know I love comments and kudos.


	5. Bad Brain Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Migraine days were bad brain days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for xxx_cat_xxx, who asked for Tony getting a migraine post-snap. Unbeta'd.

Migraine days were bad brain days. 

Tony had fewer of those now than he used to. Domesticity and retirement suited him. A quiet life away from the city suited him. Having time with Pepper and Morgan and Peter suited him. 

But then he’d wake up to half his vision obscured by pulsing, half-crescents of light, and he’d know that it would be a bad brain day. 

The worst part of a migraine for Tony wasn’t the pain. The pain was bad, but his pain tolerance was pretty high, and it wasn’t anywhere near some of the pain he’d experienced since the snap. The worst thing about a migraine was the aphasia. 

“It’s not an unusual symptom,” Bruce had assured Tony the first time he’d gotten a migraine after the snap and found himself unable to read or even really speak. He’d been afraid he was having a stroke. “Migraines are unpleasant, but they pass. I’ll write you a prescription for something that will hopefully take the edge off.”

The medication Bruce gave him helped a little with the pain, but it didn’t touch the aphasia. If anything, it made it worse. Tony hated it. It made him feel helpless in a way that pain––even severe pain––didn’t. His brain was his super power. If his brain wasn’t working, then what was the point of him?

(“Starks are strong, but more than than, Starks are _smart_ ,” Howard had said, more than once. He’d never thought Tony was smart enough, but occasionally, there’d been a glimmer of pride or at least satisfaction. Tony had spent enough of his life on a therapist’s couch to recognize this for what it was, but recognizing it didn’t always help. Not on bad brain days.)

It was probably for the best that the migraine kept these thoughts locked up inside Tony’s head. He could only imagine the look on Peter or Pepper’s face if he’d ever said them aloud. But he still thought them, every time. He was thinking them now, as he lay alone in his darkened bedroom, pinwheels of light moving inexorably across the insides of his eyelids. 

Downstairs, he heard Peter’s car pull into the driveway. It was one o’clock. Peter shouldn’t have been home for hours yet, but Pepper had... something that afternoon, and Tony was too out of it to stay with Morgan by himself, so she must’ve asked Peter to come home early and babysit both of them. 

Tony _hated it_. 

The edge of the bed dipped. Tony opened his eyes to see Pepper settle beside him, dressed for work in her favorite blue suit. She looked at him with sympathy—or, Tony’s brain supplied unhelpfully, pity—in her eyes. 

“Are you sure you’re okay with me going?” Pepper asked. “I can cancel. We own the company, they’re not going to fire me.”

Tony shook his head. “Go. I’m okay.”

Pepper looked resigned, as though she’d known he’d say that. “Peter’s here. Let him help you, all right?”

Tony turned his face away. “I don’t...” He sucked in a breath, unable to put even a short sentence together. “I’m fine,” he finally said. 

“Oh honey,” Pepper murmured, cupping his face with her hand. She bent down and kissed his forehead. “It’s okay that you’re not.”

Tony didn’t answer. After a moment, Pepper sighed and kissed him again. “I’ll be back tonight in time for dinner. Take it easy on Peter?”

Tony nodded. Pepper got up and left.

Minutes went by, while Tony stewed in his migraine and self-loathing. Pepper wasn’t wrong. Tony knew he could be a stubborn asshole on shitty days, and it really wasn’t Peter’s fault. 

Eventually, Tony heard Peter climbing the stairs. He tapped lightly at the door frame before sticking his head in. “Tony?” he said softly. “How’re you doing?”

“Okay,” Tony muttered. 

“Hmm.” Peter sounded dubious. He came in and sat on the edge of Tony’s bed. “Pepper said it was a bad day in more ways than one.”

Tony frowned, turning his face away. Peter seemed undeterred. He took Tony’s hand in his. “Morgan and I are just hanging out downstairs. Do you want to be alone or would you like some company?”

Tony wanted the company. He wanted the company badly, if he was honest, but he didn’t want his kids to be stuck in this dark room with him. “Alone.”

“Okay,” Peter said easily. “Do you need another dose of your medication? Or maybe some water?”

“Water,” Tony said. And then managed, “Thanks.”

“No problem.” 

Peter refilled his water glass from the tap in the bathroom and brought him a cold, damp cloth, too. He draped it over Tony’s eyes, then squeezed his uninjured shoulder gently before leaving. Tony tried not to sulk, though he guessed it didn’t matter if he did. Who would know, after all?

It was a dreary, rainy day, so Peter and Morgan stayed inside. Tony listened to them moving around the first floor, letting himself take comfort in the fact that he wasn’t _really_ alone. They were nearby, safe and ready to help him if he needed it. He didn’t like that Pepper had asked Peter to come home from campus early, but he had to admit that it’d been the right thing to do. 

Sleep eluded him, as it often did when he had a migraine. He lost some time, though, so he wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying there when the door to his bedroom creaked open. Small feet padded over to the bed. 

“Daddy?” Morgan whispered. “Peter said I had to be really quiet because your head hurts, but I could come in and show you what I made you.”

Tony opened his eyes, squinting at Morgan. Half her face was obscured by a crescent of light, but he could see she was holding out a piece of her drawing paper to him. It was heavy with glue and glitter. He had to blink at it a couple times, because it was dim in the room and his brain really did not want to process anything, but he finally figured out that it said, “FEEL BETTER DADDY.”

He managed a smile for her. “Thanks, Mo.” He looked past her and saw Peter leaning in the doorway with a bag in his hand. “Hi, Pete.”

“Hi,” Peter said. “Still want to be alone?”

It was too hard to say no to the two of them together. He sat up and moved over. Morgan clambered over him to Pepper’s side and tucked herself in on Tony’s right, which was currently free of his prosthesis. Peter went to fetch him a fresh glass of water and a fresh cold towel. Once Tony had everything he needed, he sat down on the edge of the bed and swung his bare feet up. 

Tony didn’t know why he’d ever thought he’d be better off on his own. This was clearly the best place to be, sandwiched between his two kids. Even if he didn’t deserve it. 

“Can we watch a movie?” Morgan whispered, once they were situated with the blanket from the foot of the bed spread over all three of them. “Peter said it might hurt your eyes.”

“It’s okay, baby,” Tony said. “I can, um...” He took a deep breath, searched with frustration for the simplest words that fell just out of reach. 

“Close your eyes?” Peter finally suggested. Tony nodded, gritting his teeth in frustration. 

Morgan didn’t seem to notice Tony’s struggle. “Do you want to watch _Moana_ or _Frozen_ or _Lilo and Stitch_?”

Normally Tony would’ve teased her about there only being three movies in existence and maybe tried to get her to expand her palette, but a limited selection was actually helpful right now. It meant he didn’t have to think about it too hard. “ _Moana_.” 

“FRIDAY, please play _Moana_ ,” Morgan chirped, and snuggled into Tony’s side. FRIDAY started projecting the movie on the blank wall across from the bed. She kept the light dimmer than usual, and Tony was glad to find that it didn’t really bother his eyes after all. He still couldn’t track what was going on, but he’d seen the movie probably fifty times, so it didn’t matter. He settled back, leaning against Peter.

“So when Pepper called me,” Peter murmured, reaching into the bag he’d brought with him, “I went to the health food store by campus and asked them what they had for migraines.”

Tony frowned. “That’s...” He paused, searching for the word, and finally came up with, “Hooey.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I thought you might say that. Humor me, okay? They sold me this salve that’s peppermint-infused coconut oil. One of the employees who said she got migraines swore by it. She said to put a little under your nose, so you’re breathing it in, and then she told me to rub some into the heel of your hand, because there’s like a pressure point there.” He opened the jar of salve and held it out to Tony. 

Tony sniffed at it. It was very pepperminty. It almost made his eyes water. But it probably wouldn’t hurt him, and this was what Pepper had meant when she’d asked Tony to let Peter help him. 

He took a little of the salve and smeared it under his nose, like Peter had suggested. He held his hand out to Peter, who took it in both of his. Peter’s hands were warm; Tony’s was cold and slightly numb, which wasn’t unusual when he had a migraine. Peter took a scoop of the salve out of its jar and spread it across the base of Tony’s hand, and then started working it in, pressing harder near the base as though searching for the pressure point.

It was soothing, if nothing else. It made it harder for the bad thoughts to creep in. 

_Take a hike, Howard_ , he thought, and rested his head on Peter’s shoulder. 

Tony didn’t know whether it was the peppermint smell or the massage or just the migraine getting better all on its own, but something actually started to help. The aura that had plagued him since he’d woken up was fading. He could focus on what was happening on screen, even if his brain still felt like it was working at about an eighth its usual speed. 

By the time Moana and Maui reached the realm of monsters, Morgan was asleep, and Tony’s head was resting heavily against Peter’s shoulder. “How’re you doing?” Peter asked him, keeping his voice low. 

“Better,” Tony admitted. “Thanks. That helped a lot.” The words came easily, without any hesitation. Tony sighed in relief.

“Good,” Peter said, sounding very satisfied with himself. Tony supposed he had the right to it. Peter yawned. “I think Morgan has the right idea. Wake me if you need anything?”

“Will do,” Tony said. He put his arm around Peter’s shoulders, and Peter turned on his side, tucking himself in just like Morgan had. Tony was pinned down from either side by his kids; he couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to, and at some other point in his life that would have filled him with panic. But not now. Now, there was simply nowhere else he wanted to be. 

He closed his eyes. This time, sleep came for him quickly. 

***

He woke alone to a clear head, albeit with a glimmer of migraine hangover. He’d have to be gentle with himself for a while longer, but the worst of it was over. 

He could hear Peter and Morgan downstairs. It was almost six o’clock, so they were probably making dinner. Peter was pretty capable in the kitchen––much more capable than his aunt––so it wasn’t a need to check on them that propelled him out of bed. It wasn’t that they needed him, Tony had to admit to himself; it was that he needed them. 

He regarded the prosthesis, discarded on the ottomon at the foot of the bed the night before and not picked up again that day. Putting on the prosthesis often felt like putting on the armor; he was ready for anything with it. But he was still tired and headachey, and it seemed like a lot of work. In the end, he went without. 

“Okay, so now we put the Jell-O in,” Peter was saying to Morgan as Tony came down the stairs. He was holding her up by her waist at the stove so she could pour a pack of Jell-O into a pot. “Yup, just like that! Good job, Mo.” 

“What’s going on?” Tony asked, pausing at the edge of the kitchen. 

“Daddy!” Morgan said, a little too loud. Peter gave her a glance as he set her on the counter. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, more quietly. “Are you feeling better?”

“Much better, thanks, Mo,” Tony said, going to kiss her on the top of her head. “What are you two cooking up?”

“Raspberry salad! It hasn’t got any lettuce in it, though. Peter says it doesn’t count as one of my vegetables.”

“May and I used to make it when I was a kid,” Peter said. “It’s just Jell-O, applesauce, and raspberries. I thought we could have it for dessert.”

“Sure, that sounds good. And no, it definitely doesn’t count as a vegetable,” Tony added, booping Morgan’s nose with his fingertip. She giggled. 

“I was going to make pizza for dinner, is that all right with you?” Peter asked. “I can also heat up soup if that would be better.”

“Nah, pizza’s fine. As long as it doesn’t have pineapple on it.”

“I like pineapple on pizza,” Morgan protested. 

“Only because your brother has corrupted you.”

“I’ll make two,” Peter said as he started pulling down ingredients for pizza dough. “One with pineapple for the people with taste and one without for the plebians, how’s that?”

“I guess that’s okay,” Morgan said judiciously. She kicked her legs out. “Daddy, can you help me down?”

Tony helped her down from the counter, and she ran off into the living room. “Can I help?” Tony asked Peter. 

“You can sit,” Peter said, pointing to the kitchen table. 

“I’m not an invalid.”

“I never said you were. But you don’t need to help.”

Tony sighed heavily, dropping into one of the dining room chairs. “At least let me chop some vegetables or something, so I’m not completely useless.”

Peter gave him a look. Tony snapped his mouth shut––too damn late––and watched Peter move around the kitchen. He poured the raspberry salad mixture into a glass dish and put it in the fridge, and then started the pizza dough. Tony had been the one to teach him how to make it, after Peter had moved in with them. It had taken a few tries, but Peter’s was just as good as Tony’s was now. 

Once he had it rising in a bowl, Peter put the kettle on for tea. He poured a cup for himself and a cup for Tony, and brought them both over to the table. 

“Thanks,” Tony muttered, accepting the mug from him. He sighed. “Sorry, kid. I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass.”

“You’re not a pain in the ass,” Peter said. Tony raised his eyebrows at him. “Okay, you are a pain in the ass, but that’s family, right? I’m a pain in your ass, you’re a pain in my ass. It’s the circle of life.”

Tony snorted. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“And you’re not useless,” Peter said, much more seriously. “You’re never useless, Tony.”

“I felt useless today. I couldn’t even _speak_. What is the fucking point of me if I can’t even––”

“ _Stop_ ,” Peter said sharply. Tony did, surprised. He looked at Peter and saw that he didn’t look annoyed, as Tony had half-expected. He looked... pained. “Sorry,” Peter said, covering his face with his hand. “I didn’t mean to snap. I just––I hate hearing you talk like that. Like you don’t think you deserve to be here if you can’t be exactly the same person you were before.”

Tony couldn’t stand seeing Peter so obviously distressed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that.”

“But sometimes you think it.”

The kid was just too sharp by half. And he knew Tony way too well. “Sometimes. Not a lot.”

“Is it... that you can’t be Iron Man anymore? Because no one cares that you can’t––”

“It isn’t,” Tony replied, with a shake of his head. He paused, taking a deep breath, gathering himself to articulate something he hadn’t even told Pepper. “That’s not it. It’s––it’s not being able to be _Tony Stark_ anymore. And most of the time, it’s okay. On normal days I feel like myself. Today was just... it was a bad brain day. I hate being so out of it you have to ditch your plans to come home, and I hate––I _hate_ ––not even being able to get a string of words out of my mouth in an order that make sense.”

Peter nodded, looking as though he was absorbing this. Tony picked his mug up and sipped his tea, just for something to do. 

“For what it’s worth,” Peter finally said, “I’ve never thought of you as being... not you. Even when you’re having a bad brain day, you’re still... you’re still inherently you.”

“Thanks, kid, but let’s be real, my intelligence is kind of my defining characteristic,” Tony said with a self-deprecating smile. 

“Not to me,” Peter said, raising his head. “To me, it’s... it’s all the other stuff.”

“The other stuff?” 

“The other stuff,” Peter said firmly. “The stuff you don’t let other people see. It’s... it’s the way you love the people you’ve chosen as your own. It’s how stubborn you are, even when it kind of makes me want to strangle you, because that’s what made you strong enough to survive the snap when someone else might’ve given up. It’s how much _fun_ we have together, the two of us, no matter what we’re doing. It’s the way you look at me and Morgan like we’re both equally yours. None of that has to do with how smart you are.”

Tony swallowed against his suddenly tight throat. “Jesus, kid. All this sincerity isn’t good for me. It’s going to give me hives.”

Peter laughed quietly. “Sorry not sorry.” He got up to check the pizza dough, and, not incidentally, gave Tony a few seconds to pull himself together. He almost managed it, though he also wasn’t sure why he bothered. Peter knew him well enough to see through it. 

The pizza dough wasn’t done yet, of course, but when Peter came back, he was juggling a bell pepper, a can of pineapple, and an onion, as well as two cutting boards and two kitchen knives. “Here,” he said, setting everything down on the table. 

“Thank you,” Tony said, taking the pepper from him. He sliced it in half and set one half aside. “I’ll leave you the pineapple as punishment for bringing your sister over to the dark side.”

Peter smirked as he popped the top of the can. “We all know that if anyone in this house is a Slytherin, it’s her.”

“Are you mixing your fandoms now?” Tony teased him. 

Peter rolled his eyes. “‘Dark side’ isn’t exclusive to _Star Wars_ , Tony.”

“Oh well, excuse me,” Tony said, returning the eye-roll with interest. 

To Tony’s relief, Peter seemed inclined to let emotional dogs lie for now. He set about chopping the pineapple into small cubes, while Tony finely chopped half the bell pepper.

Tony had just set his sights on the onion when Morgan ran in, demanding pineapple as a pre-dinner snack. She sat with Tony and helped chop the rest of the veggies while Peter fried up some sausage to put on the non-pineapple pizza. By then the pizza dough was ready to be rolled out, which Peter did while narrating everything out loud to Morgan. Then Morgan helped Peter assemble them––marinara and cheese and onions on both, ham and pineapple on one, and sausage and bell pepper on the other. 

Tony watched them together and felt like a sap for how happy it made him. Peter had been living with them for over a year now, but this was never, ever going to get old. 

Howard had never figured that out, Tony thought, and felt an unusual wave of pity toward his father. He’d never realized that it wasn’t about being the strongest or the smartest. It wasn’t about being quick-witted or fast-talking. It was about... this. This was what made even the bad brain days okay, in the end. 

“You okay?” Peter asked, once the pizzas were in the oven, and Morgan had run off into the living room again. He leaned against the counter, heedless of the flour that was going to get all over his shirt. “Your head isn’t hurting again, is it?”

Tony smiled. “No, kid, I’m good,” he said, and realized that for the first time all day, that was true.


End file.
